A chat with Bad Sounds

September 14, 2017

3 Min Read

Behind the scenes at this year’s Barn on the Farm festival, we chatted to brotherly duo Callum and Ewan, the leading-men from indie hip-hop group Bad Sounds, to see what they had been up to recently and their plans for the very near future.

Sitting on a dubious looking old armchair perched on a stack of wooden planks, Callum says

“Our set here was super fun, people turned out at 11.30 this morning, which was pretty magic. It was weird being that early, because our shows have a lot of energy and people at festivals don’t have much energy at 11.30 in the morning”. Ewan adds “I didn’t think anyone would turn up”.

We asked about where their niche hip-hop influenced, indie pop sound came about. Ewan explained “we grew up together, playing music together and Callum moved away for a year. I discovered hip-hop during the time he was gone and he was really into Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye, decent pop stuff really, so that’s how our sound came together.” While on the topic of influences, we asked where the inspo for their dance moves came from (if you have seen Bad Sounds live, you will know how magical their moves are). “I used to watch Michael Jackson’s ‘History’ VHS, and hide when Thriller came on, but I’d come out of hiding to watch the dance routines”. Bad Sounds’ on-stage presence can be compared to a mixture of Darwin Deez and Jonny Pierce, from The Drums’ infamous moves.

The two brothers have come a long way since playing music together while growing up, “the biggest crowd we played was with a guy called Rat Boy a while back, but we just booked our biggest venues tour this November playing at including Scala in London and Thekla in Bristol. We’ve only played Cardiff once, in Clwb Ifor Bach and it was so cool in there and a good crowd too.”

They also have gained themselves some pretty invaluable radio coverage recently. “Being played on the radio is pretty mad and surreal” Ewan says. “Annie Mac has given us support since we released ‘Avalanche’. BBC introducing has really helped us progress as a band. Playlists on Spotify also help us out too, we have been on a playlist with millions of followers which can really boost a track. It’s sort of the new radio”.

So what’s next for Bad Sounds? “We’re finishing our first album and we have an EP that is coming out followed by our November tour. At the moment, we’re just writing and getting as much material as we can”. So watch this space!

In fact, today (8th Septemeber) the band released the track ‘Hot Head Chippenham’, so instead of telling people they’re from the Bristol/Bath sort of area, they can finally say they’re from Chippenham, without much confusion. This is the second track to be taken from their new EP, which they were previously telling us, at Quench about. The first track ‘Living Alone’ was Annie Mac’s hottest record. Ewan says ​‘Living Alone’ comes from a conversation about when people’s social media feeds make you feel shitty about what you’re doing”.